Myrmecodia
(from murmex, murmekos, an ant; in allusion to those insects making their habitation in the rhizomes). ORD. Rubiaceae. A genus of about a score species of stove, epiphytal, highly glabrous, "ant-nesting" shrubs, with a smooth or prickly, tuberous rhizome, extending from Sumatra and Singapore to New Guinea, North Australia, and Solomon's Archipelago. Flowers white, small, sessile, solitary or few; calyx tube ovoid, the limb very short, entire; corolla having a cylindrical or sub-urceolate tube, and a four-lobed limb; stamens four. Leaves stalked, clustered at the tips of the branchlets, opposite, narrowed to rather long petioles, coriaceous; stipules persistent, ample, bifid; branches short, quadrangular, thick and fleshy. M. Beccarii is in cultivation in this country. It requires great heat, and should be treated like an epiphytal Orchid. Seedling plants may be raised from its fruits. M. Beccarii (Beccari's). fl., corolla tube cylindrical, the lobes ovate, thick, longer than the tube. February. fr. cylindric-oblong, rounded at apex, four-stoned. l. oblanceolate or oblong-oblanceolate, sub-acute, fleshy. Tuber not ribbed, lobed, spinu-lose; spines short, simple; branches thickened-nodose. Tropical Australia, 1884. (B. M. 6883.)